"Get a Program"

Voting isn't and never will be enough. editorial by Tony Cartalucci

January 10, 2012 - At the top of Tarpley.net is a five-point economic recovery program that has sat there since 2009. It was written by Dr. Webster Tarpley, a historian, journalist, economist, and geopolitical expert who was one of the first and most vocal critics of current US President Barack Obama. He gave stark warnings before the 2008 presidential election of expanded wars, economic depression, and Obama's catering to Wall Street, contrary to his alleged "progressive-liberal" rhetoric. In fact, Dr. Tarpley's criticism was so exact, so specific, and so troubling even Obama's opponents were hesitant to agree. However, we see in retrospect that Dr. Tarpley's words while troubling, were also prophetic. Dr. Tarpley was also one of the first geopolitical analysts to point out the true, foreign-funded nature of the US-engineered "Arab Spring." The unrest was based on a methodology used by the Western intelligence community and spelled out in detail in Tarpley's 2008 book, "Obama: The Postmodern Coup."

Now Tarpley has offered up equally harsh criticism of 2012's GOP presidential contenders without exception. Recently Dr. Tarpley, when asked what choice we have if none of the candidates were adequate, responded by saying, "you can't sit there as a political consumer and expect someone to offer you a palette of choices and you get a chance to choose from a prepackaged attractive choice." He then elaborated on the public activism necessary to take America back including getting organized, recalling state governors, and committing to general strikes.

Indeed this is the crux of the issue, not even necessarily the details of Tarpley's criticism for all of the GOP candidates as well as his continued criticism of Obama - but getting active with a specific, enumerated program to take America back.

2. Nationalize the Federal Reserve (which is currently privately owned) and have all its activity debated publicly and decisions made by elected representatives. End federal borrowing from private bankers and foreigners and allow the US to act as its own bank - offering 0% interest loans for production and industry.

4. Expand the social safety net and pay for it with money earned from the 1% Tobin tax and by ending America's endless foreign wars.

5. Promote a world economic recovery by replacing the IMF with a multilateral development bank to invest in global mega-projects including the development of the world's great rivers, the building of additional canals (a second Panama canal and a Kra Isthmus canal), and the creation of mega-bridges connecting continents and island nations.

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Tarpley's five-point program is just one of many possible programs, but it requires not simply voting in someone that will execute it, but instead creating the conditions on the ground through grassroots activism to make it happen. Oligarchical tyrants throughout history have never relinquished control of their empires simply because of "elections" or because a sufficient number of people publicly disagreed with their grip on power. It has always been force of one kind or another.

Immediately the use of the term "force" conjures up images of revolutions, particularly bloody, armed revolutions, but taking up arms is neither necessary nor optimal. It was once said that, "to fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting." These were not the words of a pacifist, but rather the words of an accomplished Chinese warlord, Sun Tzu, the author of the immortal tactical treatise "The Art of War."

Indeed, today, the corporate-financiers that dominate the Western world from Wall Street and London will not submit to a 1% Tobin tax and the quick cessation of their growing collection of global wars simply because the people vote for change. To believe that the corporate-financiers that reign over the West would subject their agenda and fate to the whims of the voting masses is naive at best. They have painstakingly ensured that no matter who gets into office, in whatever country, the guns, the oil, the wealth and the power keep flowing perpetually into their own hands.

Others have suggested boycotting the Fortune 500 who have built their unwarranted power upon our constant complicity and servile dependency on their goods and services. Pursuing technological and pragmatic local solutions offers us options of what to fill the void with after boycotting these corporations dominating modern society. Still others believe in reaching out to local law enforcement, particularly their county sheriffs to ensure the law is enforced to the benefit of the people and not a tyrannical corporate oligarchy. In reality, a combination, or synergy between all of these ideas and many more would work to our benefit, and each and every one of them involves shifting the balance of power away from the current system and the illusion of choice, to people defining for themselves their destiny and executing it from the grassroots up.

Freedom by necessity means responsibility. We as Americans have become full-spectrum consumers, believing that even in politics we sit before a buffet from which to feed. We are tired of the same choices laid out before us, but refuse to return home and cook for ourselves. We must get into our own fields, back into our own kitchens and "get a program" as Dr. Tarpley often says. And while you may not agree with all or any of Tarpley's five points, without a concrete, enumerated program of your own, your destiny and your self-determination remains undefined, undeclared, ambiguous, and therefore will be defined for you.